Novel Molecular Approaches for Studying Microbial Communities

MARCOS, M.; LOVISO, C.; GUIBERT, L.; LOZADA, M.; DIONISI, H.

San Miguel de Tucumán

Congreso; XLV Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2009

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB)

Due to their immense diversity, cumulative mass and activity, microorganisms play vital roles in all ecosystems on Earth. For these same reasons, they are currently exploited to perform several beneficial functions for society. Fundamental understanding of the underlying mechanisms that shape microbial communities and the processes they drive is still fragmentary. The development of ecosystem predictive models remains a long-term objective, but will undoubtedly have a large impact on fields such as biotechnology, agriculture or medicine. The recent advent of high-throughput molecular approaches in microbial ecology, such as the screening of genes, transcripts, proteins and metabolites in environmental samples (“omic” approaches) makes this goal attainable. Examples of current molecular strategies used in our laboratory to analyze microbial communities from marine environments impacted by anthropogenic pollution will be discussed. These include the use of massive parallel 16S rRNA tag sequencing to study microbial community structure, and the analysis of the diversity, relative abundance and biogeography of key pollutant-degrading bacteria and their catabolic pathways, by means of qPCR and metagenomic analysis.